Metamorphosis
by SensibleNonsense
Summary: Sound, Sight, Smell, Touch, Taste. And Resonance. Sometimes Soul and Maka wonder if they know each other better than they know themselves. SxM
1. Beginning

**AN:** I'm experimenting with a much more clipped style of writing in this story. It's something a lot of my favorite Soul Eater writers do, and I think it works really well for handling fluff in all series. So!—bear with me. :)

This story will come in four parts (collect them all!): Beginning, Middle, End, and Epilogue/Resonance. It follows the progession of Maka and Soul's relationship through the five senses and then through soul resonance. Not too difficult to follow, right? ;P This chapter narrates the very beginning of Maka and Soul's partnership…So light fluff on this one.

**Disclaimer:** Really? You think I own Soul Eater? Boy, are you out of the loop…

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_**In the beginning, there was…**_

**Sound**

She hears him—knows the struggle in his soul—before she meets him. The devious melody, sharp and dark and oddly compelling, is bursting-full and blooming with insanity. And yet she is drawn to it—the wavelengths of sound curling perfectly inside her ear, meandering through her subconscious and beckoning to her soul.

Adrenaline sings in her veins as she opens the doors to the piano room, smiling calmly to herself. _As expected…_

Alone and safe in the sanctuary of his song, he pays little mind to the sound of the opening door, waiting for whoever it is to retreat.

The door bangs softly shut and the melody continues with famous indifference.

And yet…

It is the footsteps that disarm him—confident footsteps that advance towards him, instead of scurrying away.

After that, their spoken introductions feel somewhat unnecessary.

**Sight**

He has to admit, she isn't much to look at—impossibly small and slight, hair a washed-out color of grayish-blonde, and no curves to speak of. But there's a certain impossible stubbornness in the way she holds her thin shoulders, the way she insists on wearing her school uniform—complete with too-big boots—to this formal occasion. And there's something else as well—a sort of child-like clarity of motive in her surprised but friendly smile.

It's all he can do not to laugh aloud—she's such a contradiction. All that escapes is the wolfish grin.

Her wide, brilliant green eyes are the only really intense feature about her. They regard him with mild curiosity, intelligence. She seems to memorize him.

For her part, she finds him…curious. Everything about him—from his messily-spiked white hair to his 1930s-era pinstriped suit—gives off an air of complete coolness. He's like a riddle she can't solve—amused and waiting and frustrating in his total nonchalance. Tired scarlet eyes half-lidded, lips curving over shark-like teeth, he regards her like an old friend, seeming to say, _So you finally showed up…_

She can't help but like him.

And yet she doesn't miss the way—dispite the habitual slouch of his shoulders—his entire body is tensed; and he doesn't forget the look of trepidation that crosses her bright eyes as they reach out to shake hands.

**Touch**

When their hands touch, it's as if some unspoken test has been passed. The tension seems to ease out of Soul's body and the apprehension from Maka's eyes. _This is going to be alright._

Both their hands are calloused, and though Soul's hand seems to cover more of Maka's, hers are warm. It's such an overused, inconsequential gesture. And yet it means the world to them.

When he's in scythe-form, she can feel his heartbeat in her hands—its quick _doki doki _rhythm—beneath warm metal. It's from this tempo—as it speeds up and slows down—that Maka orchestrates their fights and tunes into for the will to go on when injury or doubt tell her otherwise. Her hands tighten around the part of the staff that is his chest as determination surges through them both, making them giddy.

His first Maka-Chop isn't nearly as cool.

**Smell**

When Soul first moves into the little apartment, he brings with him the smell of boy. It isn't entirely unpleasant—just strange and foreign—and when it (inevitably) begins to cling to the rest of house, it becomes the smell of home.

The bathroom, though, belongs to Maka. Though she's not particularly girly by any stretch of the imagination, she still has her moments. She likes to buy flowery-smelling handsoaps and shampoos with such ridiculous names that it makes Soul cringe just to read them, and nearly kills him when he forgets to buy his own and has to borrow hers. (An unending source of glee for BlackStar, who—hypocritically—lets Tsubaki buy him his everything.) But he'll admit begrudgingly that it smells alright on Maka.

The only smell that they're both comfortable with is that of meals. Maka's the better cook, of course. They figured that out within the first week.

**Taste**

To be fair, it's difficult to know how to cook when you're used to having food served to you by servants. But Maka has no sense of pity.

He's practically having heart palpations when he sets the plates down on the table and calls her in. He'd experienced his first several Maka-Chops the day before, and isn't really sure how much more internal bleeding he can stand in such a short time period.

Maka wanders into the kitchen with her nose in a book, not bothering to looks down at the charred, lumpy mass on the plate as she lifts it to her mouth.

The first bite sends her to the bathroom. Soul decides not to touch his own. He wonders, as he searches for a hiding place, if they'll both have to survive on pre-kishin souls.

Then again, it's one of those things you have to acquire a taste for…

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**AN:** Reviews would be very much appreciated. :3


	2. Middle

**AN**: Thanks for the positive feedback thus far—you guys rock. :) This section is set during the time arc of the anime and manga (so there will be **spoilers**); now it's time to bump up the fluff. :3 It's rather more dark as well.

Now! Here's your little mini Japanese lesson of the day..._Daijōbu._ If you watch the subbed anime, you must have picked up on how often all the characters—but especially Soul and Maka—use this phrase. Its simplest English translation is "okay", but—depending on the context—can have several other meanings: "Don't worry; it's/I'm alright; are you okay?" It's an expression of concern or reassurance—a way of checking up on someone. Simple enough, right? :)

**Disclaimer**: The rights to Soul Eater, much like unicorns, are beautiful and evasive. Does that mean Atsushi Okubo owns unicorns as well…? :O

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_**And before long, they'd grown used to the…**_

**Sound**

_Daijōbu._

Neither really notices how often they use the word. In battle, it's their lifeline; a simple phrase repeated over and over to make sure—make _sure_…

"Are you okay, Maka?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Focus on the battle."

That word, so overused, is as comforting as a child's favorite blanket and feeling just as tattered around edges as it's forced out a blood-soaked mouth, the sound warped—strangled and splintering off—from pain. And yet both would continue to call out until the breath is pulled from their lungs—'til their jaws unhinge—waiting for a response. Because there's always a response—_always_—however late or unexpected it may come.

"Soul!—Are you alright?"

"Stop worrying about me. He's planning his next move."

And as for answers, they're brief and dismissive.

For such close partners, they speak to each other surprisingly little—or at least about the important things. Neither has the words and neither is really sure they want them—because saying it aloud makes it real. All the panic, the soul-shattering fear for each other's safety and survival is out there in the open, raw and ugly and in the way.

No. Simple phrases are better. They'll tell one another that everything's alright even when it's so far from the truth that it hurts their teeth to say it.

_Daijōbu._

Such a comforting lie.

**Smell**

They've grown used to the smell of blood over their year of partnership—theirs, their friends', enemies'. It's one of the hazards of their job. Ripe, murky, and strangely metallic, it's found its way onto almost every article of clothing they own. Small wonder Death City's Laundromat makes a killing.

But there are some stains that not even Shinigami-sama's finest detergents can remove.

Black Blood is sticky. It clings to everything, clutching at whatever it touches with malignant little fingers. And even when the spots begin to fade, the smell of it lingers: sickly-sweet and awful.

It sits thick in the air of the Room in Soul's subconscious, coating the back of Maka's throat like devious ink. The Imp watches her, grinning like the Cheshire Cat 'til her head begins to spin, and she all but buries her nose in the collar of Soul's suit to return to a place both safe and familiar.

For his part, Soul's known this scent for a long time; so similar to the one that's haunted him, and more familiar than the small gloved hand holding his own. He pulls Maka closer in the dance, quietly positioning his body between her and the Imp.

He seems to be doing that a lot lately.

**Sight**

It's almost uncanny how he's always there just in time to pull her out of fear, insanity, doubt, and death. How he's there at just the right moment to piss her off, make her worry herself sick over him, bicker with her father, carry her beaten body home. He's in front of every blow meant for her, arms stretched, mouth set. She's seen his flesh torn apart, his soul bitten into like a ripe apple, all to protect her. And frankly, it scares her.

He watches her try to shut him out, to fight alone—to prove that she's just as strong as he is: she'll go charging into battle without thinking, all but asking to be killed. He's seen her broken and furious, chest heaving, tear-brightened eyes demanding to know—_why can't I do this?_

But there are worse times as well—times when her face shuts down and she curls up into a tight ball within herself. When Spirit slips away into the cabaret for days on end, when Crona leaves without a word, when she really believed for those few moments that Soul would leave her for Blair—this is what sentences her to her personal Hell; a place so distant, so closed to him, that sometimes he's afraid she'll never come back. The thought scares him shitless.

They're both so scared.

**Touch**

All there is are her painfully ragged breaths and the shockwaves trembling up her legs as she rushes to catch the trailing fabric of the escaping Kishin. Adrenaline carries them past the despondency of their friends—rage and despair propelling her forward just quick enough to grasp the last thread. And then she's flying up.

Cold wind whips past as they ascend the passage far too quickly. Maka yells something and slams Soul's blade into the brick-and-mortar wall. She feels him shudder in her hand as his blade shrieks through mortar like a thousand nails on a chalkboard, and swallows the heavy stone of guilt. It's made no difference in their speed and her sweating hand cramps awfully in her glove as she forces her fingers to _hold on_. She's beginning to slip.

The Kishin breaks through the city street—chunks of cobbling exploding in every direction—and she might just have managed to hold on, but a stray piece cracks her in the back of the head.

And it's like flipping a switch as she releases both Kishin and scythe and begins a ragdoll freefall towards. All she registers is nauseating pain and sudden descent and _no_—

And then wickedly strong arms are there, wrapping around her shoulders and middle like a tourniquet, holding her against the only solid surface as the air rushes by around them and they plunge through the storefront canopy. Bottles and crates and poles and tables give way violently beneath them. The force of impact snatches the breath from his lungs and he grits his teeth, pressing Maka's head into his shoulder as to keep from crying out from the excruciating assault on his back.

Roaring waves of pain ripple and twinge through his neck and spine, blinding him for a few moments. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders vaguely how many of and what he's broken. But that's the least of his concerns.

Maka stirs—makes an impossible effort to get up, to _help_, to _stop him—_and she struggles, muttering words of duty and self-disappointment before nausea and unconsciousness claim her again and she falls back onto Soul's chest.

The boy is stunned. He figures he must be in some sort of shock because his limbs are slowly loosing feeling. And all he can do is laugh quietly to himself in awed disbelief—because _that's Maka… Incredible._

A thousand feet above the Kishin and Shinigami-sama exchange words and blows too far away for Soul to hear or fully grasp anything except a certainty that—in this new, surreal world of bleeding clouds and warring gods—nothing was ever going to be the same. It's all he can do to watch and wonder and fear and shield Maka against the shockwaves from the blows above.

And then the show is over—the Kishin's escaped—and Soul sighs, the comforting weight of his meister pressing him against solid ground. He nudges her head over with his chin and manages, at length, the Herculean task of getting them both on their feet.

With one last huge effort, he gently hoists his meister onto his mangled back and begins the long trek home; whoever's completely incapacitated always gets first treatment.

It's not always as fair as it sounds.

**Taste**

"Ahhhh," Soul pantomimes, opening his sharp-toothed mouth wide in example as inches the spoon closer to her mouth. It remains tightly closed in an unhappy line. He sighs; neither of them wants to be doing this. But since being paralyzed by Arachne's golem, the only thing in Maka's control is her facial expression, which is enough to express her varying levels of displeasure, but not to keep her fed.

Instructed by Nygus-sensei get the food-energy in her himself—because they're _partners_, after all—he was shoved a bowl of porridge, a plastic spoon, and a very uncooperative Maka. At one point BlackStar had volunteered to help, but Soul had declined, not particularly keen on murdering his meister.

"Nygus-sensei will kick my ass if I don't get you to eat anything, you know," he mutters.

"I'd do it for her if I could move."

_At least it would be a different kind of abuse._ He leans back in the folding chair, biting back his growing irritation. This wasn't cool to begin with, but now—after nearly an hour—they've both lost their patience with each other. Clearly he needs to try a different approach.

"Look, you're reading too much into this; you feed me souls all the time, don't you?"

"That's different, idiot."

As if on cue, her stomach growls loudly. Soul cracks a grins inspite of himself.

"You don't have to keep proving it to me, Maka," Soul sighs, his breath tickling against her forehead as he leans over to set the bowl on her lap. "I already know how strong you are." He puts the full spoon to her lips once more.

The porridge is cold and lumpy from its hour-long wait, and awful powdery medicine that hasn't been mixed in properly sticks nastily to her tongue. But as far as Maka cares to notice, it's the best meal she's ever had.

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**AN:** Kind of irritated at myself for not keeping things quite as short and clipped as I'd intended for this story. I got caught up in the thoughts of the characters this time—so much so that, in the end, I couldn't bear to extract them and rewrite it all...Where's a Maka Chop when you need one?! D: Hope to get back on track with the next chapter… :)


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